Huskies Keep Their Edge

It was the fall of 1969. UCLA’s Coach John Wooden no longer had his stellar center Lew Alcindor -- now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar -- Alcindor having graduated after leading the Bruins to three consecutive NCAA men’s basketball championships. As the 1969-70 season got underway, Wooden remarked how nice it would be, once again, to coach to win instead of coaching not to lose.

Thirty-three years later, Geno Auriemma, Connecticut’s women’s coach, finds himself in a similar circumstance.

His Huskies are coming off a third national championship, although not in a row. Last year’s team, led by the senior quartet of Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Asjha Jones and Tamika Williams, went 39-0 as it grew to be considered one of the greatest women’s teams in college basketball history.

The 2002-03 UConn roster has no seniors. Eight of the 11 players are freshmen or sophomores. Star junior guard Diana Taurasi is the only returning starter.

So this season should be Auriemma’s free pass. A season of lowered expectations, of teaching rather than caretaking. A season Auriemma can coach to win, instead of not to lose.

But the 45-year-old Auriemma, who was born in Italy and grew up into a charming mix of brashness and confidence in Norristown, Pa., doesn’t see it that way.

“To me, I would rather be in last year’s situation than any situation I can imagine,” Auriemma said. “To me, that is fun, when all the pressure’s on you, when everybody expects you to be great, to set a standard that’s never been reached. And last year I had the team to do that.”

In 17 years at Connecticut, Auriemma has built the women’s program to a level few universities reach. Before he arrived, the Huskies had one winning season in 11 years. Besides the three national titles -- only Tennessee, with six, has more -- the Huskies have won 12 Big East regular-season championships and 11 Big East tournament titles, nine in succession.

Auriemma, 29 victories shy of 500, has coached 10 All-Americans and four national players of the year. Since 1995, his first NCAA championship season, the Huskies have lost 17 games. His biggest accomplishment, however, is that every recruited freshman who has played for Auriemma and completed her eligibility at Connecticut has graduated.

Auriemma embraces the weight of his legacy, but he feels it just the same. He is trying not to transfer that pressure to this season’s team.

“I get frustrated because I try to make these players play at the level that I have no right to expect them to play,” he said. “But if I don’t expect it, we’ll never reach it.

“That’s what makes coaches kind of crazy. You walk that fine line, trying to balance those things. You know you don’t have the same kind of talent. But still, your expectations are so high that you have to temper that.”

So far the Huskies are bearing up. After routing USC on Sunday, Connecticut is 7-0 and ranked third. It has won 46 consecutive games, tying Tennessee for the second-longest streak in women’s college basketball.

Auriemma says he is not obsessed with winning because “that attitude clouds everything you do.” Instead, he pursues coaching a team that plays the game perfectly.

Last year’s team came close.

“I would say the Old Dominion game in the regional final -- the first 20 minutes of that game, I don’t think the game of basketball can be played any better,” Auriemma said.

Still, Auriemma isn’t sure how much longer he can keep, or wants to keep, his drive to see Connecticut on top. Not that he’s planning on retiring tomorrow. But he can’t envision being on the Huskies’ bench when he’s 70.

“I think the life span for a coach like me is very short,” he said. “You look at guys like [North Carolina’s] Dean Smith and you say to yourself, ‘How in God’s name can you do that 32 years?’

“Somewhere, you have to come to grips with it all. But I haven’t come to grips with it yet.”